Twin Dragons
Hong Kong/USA 1991
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Hong Kong, 1965. Newborn twin brothers are separated when a fleeing crook barges through a hospital room, taking one baby as hostage. Although the criminal is captured, the child becomes a foundling. Raised by a good-natured but alcoholic floozy, he grows up to be Boomer, a mechanic and racing driver. He has a knack for martial arts and is often dragged into trouble by his friend Tyson. Meanwhile, John Ma, Boomer's brother, grows up in wealthy surroundings and becomes a concert pianist and conductor. The brothers share a psychic link and tune into each other's sneezes and sensations at odd moments.
John arrives in Hong Kong for a concert and hooks up with Tammy. Her father, eager for an advantageous marriage, has provided her as an assistant, although Tammy has a violent boyfriend. Thanks to Tyson, Boomer has to rescue Barbara, a singer, from a nightclub and, after losing a bet on a car race, is forced to flee from gangsters by boat. When the chase winds up with the crooks' best driver in traction and Tyson in the care of a gangster-run hospital, Boomer is forced to help rescue a gang boss from police custody. John and Boomer get mixed up, each falling in with the other's girl. They are forced to blunder through each other's special tasks, with Boomer conducting a concert and John driving the getaway car on the rescue attempt. John escapes with a valise full of money and the crooks threaten to kill Tyson unless it is returned, which prompts the brothers to collaborate on a rescue mission.
After the villains are defeated and Tyson is saved, everyone realises they are twins. At a double wedding, Barbara and Tammy are unable to tell which brother is which but opt to marry the ones they have hold of.
Review
Given a fresh dub in English, with Jackie Chan speaking his own lines on the voice-track, this 1992 effort has been slightly trimmed to trot out smartly on the coat-tails of his long-delayed English-language breakthrough Rush Hour. (He has been making the odd American film since The Cannonball Run in 1980.) An obvious twist on the 1991 Jean-Claude Van Damme video perennial Double Impact, Twin Dragons is pretty much a ramshackle affair. It blends knockabout comedy with the regulation incredible stuntwork, and tries for a freewheeling, farcical tone that falls flat as often as it soars gracefully.
It is perhaps unfair to judge the movie by the standards even of its genre since it was undertaken as a fund-raiser for the Directors Guild of Hong Kong. Unusually, it pairs directors Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam Ling-Tung (splitting the job between the Boomer and John scenes), while every role in the film (apart from the two female leads) is taken by a director, the ultimate evolution of a casting style John Landis developed in Into the Night. Though Hark and Lam (who can be spotted playing cards just before the final set-piece fight in a garage) get away with their in-joke, the procession of bit parts for astonished waiters, passers-by and hotel functionaries becomes wearying. You suspect even Hong Kong audiences would be hard-pressed to identify all of the wannabe scene-stealers, and few of the distinguished participants show much skill with double-take comedy.
Taken on its own merits, this is very much the Chan mixture in its most unambitious form, with a lot of action but no danger. There are comic skits (Boomer's manic attempt at conducting), chases (with speedboats and cars) and many, many fights, plus rather too much of that overfamiliar mixing-up-the-twins plotting and the psychic-link gambit. Some of the double exposures are ropey, and the ponytail Boomer wears to distinguish him from John doesn't help much. The girls, especially the kittenish Nina Li Chi wriggling in sheath dresses, are great fun, but Teddy Robin Kwan's pigeon-chested bantamweight big-mouth Tyson wins on points as the most obnoxious sidekick in movie history - and since Chan can be his own sidekick here, the most superfluous. As is often the case, Chan is at his most impressive in the tiniest stunts: flicking away each of the tools arrayed on a bench in turn as a villain reaches for weapons and walking over a careening car.
Credits
- Producer
- Teddy Robin Kwan
- Screenplay
- Barry Wong Ping-Yiu
- Tsui Hark
- Joe Cheung Tung-Cho
- Wong Yik
- Directors of Photography
- Wong Wing-Hang
- Arthur Wong Ngok-Tai
- Editor
- Mak Chi-Sin
- Art Directors
- Bill Lui Chor-Hung
- Ray Lam Chan-Fai
- Music
- Lowell Lo
- [Liu Koon-Ting]
- ©1991 Paragon Films Ltd
- Production Company
- Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild
- Executive Producer
- Ng See-Yuen
- Production Supervisors
- Joe Cheung Tung-Cho
- John Keung Dai-Wai
- Siu Tak-Sum
- Production Manager
- Law Sai-Keung
- Assistant Directors
- Lo Bo-Shan
- Catherine Lau Kar-Wai
- Kam Shui-Fan
- Wan Shiu-Kuen
- Continuity
- Kwok Siu-Wai
- Costume Designer
- Chong Che-Leung
- Wardrobe
- So Chin-Fa
- Make-up
- Lam Che-Cheung
- Hairstylist
- Lau Shui-Yin
- Stunt Choreographer
- Jackie Chan
- Yuen Woo-Ping
- Ching Siu-Tung
- Stephen Tung Wai
- Tsui Siu-Ming
- Chris Lee Kin-Sang
- 1992 English language version credits
- © 1992 Paragon Films Ltd. Production Company A Golden Harvest presentation
- 1998 English language version credits
- English Adaptation
- Rod Dean
- Val Kuklowsky
- Music
- Michael Wandmacher
- Phe Loung
- [Barrington Pheloung]
- ©none
- Production Companies
- Dimension Films presents in association with Distant Horizon and Media Asia Distribution a film by "Hong Kong Directors' Club"
- Los Angeles Post-production
- Dimension Executives in Charge
- Andrew Rona
- Ken Park
- Voice Casting
- Steve Apostolina
- Editorial Consultant
- Rod Dean
- Titles
- Design:
- yU+co.
- Opticals:
- Vision Production, Inc
- Jerry Kitz
- Orchestrator
- Tim Simonec
- Facilities Director
- David Dubow
- Scoring Engineer
- Dan Wallin
- Sound Designer
- Kim B. Christensen
- Sound Supervisor
- Val Kuklowsky
- Re-recording Mixers
- Gary J. Coppola
- Brad Sherman
- Recordist
- Unsun Song
- Sound Editors
- Erick Jolley-Clark
- Sam Hinckley
- Scott Koue
- ADR
- Voice Director:
- Rod Dean
- Voice Talent:
- Kirk Baily
- Bai Ling
- Steve Bulen
- Dan Lorge'
- Steve Cassling
- Mary Elizabeth McGynn
- Alex Daniels
- Gracie Moore
- Mary Ellen Dunbar
- Bob Pappenbrook
- Richard Epcar
- Tony Pope
- Bridgete Hoffman
- Stuart Robinson
- Rif Hutton
- Barry Stigler
- Tom Kramer
- Paul St. Peter
- Wendee Lee
- Kim Thornton
- Steve Apostolina
- Recordist:
- Bruno Frasca
- Mixers:
- John Dunne
- Chris Philp
- Gary Ulmer
- Editor:
- Joan Giamarco
- Foley
- Artists:
- Pat Cabral
- Edward Steidele
- Editor:
- John Wilde
- Cast
- Jackie Chan
- [Sing Lung]
- Boomer/John Ma
- Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk
- Barbara
- Teddy Robin Kwan
- Tyson
- Anthony Chan Yau
- hotel staffer
- Philip Chan Yan-Kin
- hotel manager
- Sylvia Chang
- [Zhang Aijia]
- twins' mother
- Alfred Cheung Kin-Ting
- Boss Wing
- Jacob Cheung Chi-Leung
- cashier
- Joe Cheung Tung-Cho
- orchestra member
- Chor Yuen
- Tammy's father
- John Keung Dai-Wai
- hotel security
- Ringo Lam Ling-Tung
- card player at test centre
- Liu Chia-Liang
- [Lau Ka-Leung]
- doctor
- Guy Lai Ying-Chow
- gang leader
- Nina Li Chi
- Tammy
- Jamie Luk Kim-Ming
- Rocky
- Pa Shan
- thug
- Ng See-Yuen
- car mechanic
- John Woo
- [Ng Yu-Sam]
- priest
- Eric Tsang Chi-Wai
- man on phone
- Tsui Hark
- card player at test centre
- Tsui Siu-Ming
- priest
- James Wong Jim
- twins' father
- Che-Kirk Wong Chi-Keung
- Crazy Kung
- Johnny Wang Lung-Wei
- thug
- David Wu Dai-Wai
- waiter
- [uncredited on 1998 English language version]
- Wu Ma
- Lowell Lo
- [Liu Koon-Ting]
- Wong Jing
- Certificate
- 12
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- 8,025 feet
- 89 minutes 11 seconds
- SDDS/Dolby digital
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic
- Dimension Films re-scored and re-dubbed Twin Dragons circa 1998.
- As a fund-raising excercise for the Hong Kong Film Directors'Guild, some 50 local film directors were persuaded to cameo in this film.